Is ambulatory surgery safe for very old individuals?
– TOP Advanced age alone is not a reason to disallow surgery in an ambulatory setting. Age, however, does affect the pharmacokinetics of drugs: short acting drugs take a longer time to be excreted in older individuals. It is important to realize that most medical problems that older individuals may experience are not caused by age, but by specific organ dysfunction. For that reason, all individuals, whether young or old, deserve a careful preoperative history and physical examination by a physician.
